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8

encouraging prospect for a man with a wife and two children whom he wants to bring up in comfort and give at least average advantages. It seems like wasting one's best years in a job that is now little better than a high grade clerk's. From some points of view, it is a great deal worse than a clerk's because a clerk usually has few illusions about the future whereas we've been trained to expect to reach a position of average success at least. But most of us are so tied down without other resource that we must sit back and take it without an audible murmur of protest. It may not be the fault of the GE Company, but the facts remain. We aren't satisfied and many of us aren't, after all, in the right niche. I, for one, am going to make a determined effort to get out, partially at least, of this rut. There is a way and I'm going to take it.

The "way" that I had in mind, of course, was writing, a hope that I clung to through thick and thin. In my diary of that day, I go on to cover thoroughly my reasoning that writing provides the answer to my problem. Since this discourse is still in excellent shape, I'm including the two pages (8a & 8b) in here. However, I did make a serious attempt this time to do something about it by finally producing a few manuscripts although I didn't really get into my stride studying under Uzzell until a year or so 1ater.  Hopefully I mailed manuscripts to such magazines as Liberty and Collier's (not realizing I didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of having them accepted) and had them returned with rejection slips forthwith. But I did try and I think the reason there is so little diary is the fact that in 1933, I was actually doing some writing, ineffectual though it was. In actuality, it would appear that what may have done me the most good in 1933, was to complain enough to the powers—that—be to get myself assigned to the car—spotting study which probably got me back onto a five—day week, providentially, for a six—week period and perhaps more. 

But I had until September to go, before the car—spotting job would bail me out of my four—day week. One day in mid—April, I had spent the morning at the office "speed—timing," on what job I don't know, but after lunch I had developed a throbbing, splitting headache and decided to take the afternoon off. I walked all the way downtom and thence home, and the fresh air did me good. Leaving the avenue leading up to the main entrance of the plant, I followed a path cutting across the fields south of the Lake Road. The sky was clear and pale blue. Not far away across the rolling land, the lake faded away in bands of azure, disappearing somewhere in the sky. Things were wakening. Spring was here to stay. I enjoyed thoroughly playing hooky from the office with the protection of a good excuse, my headache. I doubt if I'd enjoyed such an experience as much since skipping school. I strode on across plowed 1and,through last year's dry grass, beside garden plots, along ditches filled with rain